French Breakfasts, Ladies Drinking Beer & Polyandry

A few things that must be said:

1. A restaurant in Kerala offered their idea of a quintessential French breakfast: coffee, croissant and a lone cigarette. Cultural stereotyping at its finest.

2. The other night a group of local guys sat down at the table next to us at the bar. One of them proceeded to tell me, and the other men I was with, that it just “wasn’t right” that I (a female) was drinking a big bottle of Kingfisher beer. I didn’t appreciate his concern.

This New York Times article nicely summarizes the kind of cultural conflicts that surround booze-drinking women (and “havens of hand-holding: shopping malls) in India today.

Casual misogyny is a little troubling.

A “please turn off your cellphones during the movie” ad playing at a Mumbai cinema seemed to be suggesting that if you failed to turn off your cellphone you would get sexually assaulted.

The animated clip involved an extremely curvaceous woman (think Jessica Rabbit) being chased down a dark street by a leering, muscular and moustachioed man with foreboding eyebrows. Her breasts bounce uncontrollably as she runs away from him. Finally, she ducks to safety behind a dumpster in a nearby alley. It looks like the poor, scantily clad woman has safely escaped Scary Man until … her cellphone rings. And AI! AI! AI! the man has found her. A zoom-in on the woman’s face shows her terror and the clip ends with a close-up on the man’s mighty eyebrows wiggling up and down in a more than suggestive manner.

.

3. On a more positive note, Ladakh has to be one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

One author writing about Ladakh suggests that “the almost complete emancipation of women in Buddhist society” is immediately apparent in your interactions with Ladakhis. “The cheerfulness shown by people of all sorts and conditions in central Ladakh may well be due partly to the fact that one half of the population is not kept in a state of perpetual subjection by the other.”

And she’s so right!

Ladakhi people were exceptionally friendly. They welcomed us into their homes and fed us salted butter tea and chang (a local barley beer). Most importantly we met the KING of all grandfathers. He wore dark sunglasses all day long whether he was working in the garden or sitting in the dark kitchen, and protected us from his guard dog which threatened to bite out our larynxes whenever we passed by. After dinner he cooly drank a very large amount of chang while nonchalantly spinning his prayer wheel and chanting the Buddhist mantra om mani padme hum.

.

.

Aside from the stunning geography, ancient monasteries and warmhearted people, Ladakh is also fascinating in that it used to be home to widespread polyandry (outlawed in the 1940s). Out of a number of brothers, one was usually dedicated to the Buddhist religion as a lama. Unless the eldest brother was so inclined, it was usually the youngest who was pushed into a religious vocation. The eldest brother was normally heir to the family property and any remaining brothers that wished to lay claim to this inheritance or stay within the family were necessarily subservient to the older brother. Subservience in this case meant being married to your brother’s wife.

So, that’s all very cool for the ladies BUT – just to make things fair in a way unheard of in most cultures – “depending on the circumstances of each particular family, marriages could be polyandrous, polygynous, or monogamous – a beautifully flexible system.” Marital flexibility’s where it’s at.

.

We went to the Dalai Lama’s birthday party just outside of Leh, the biggest city in Ladakh. He wasn’t there that day but we did manage to see him up close & personal a few weeks later in Mcleod Ganj. He was just as jovial in real life as he is in the many, many portraits of him that adorn the restaurants, hotels, stores, homes and temples of Mcleod.

soviet propaganda: the new woman

.

From the foreward: “Women’s high position in the Soviet society, the position they have won under the leadership of the Party of Lenin and Stalin, has placed them, together with the rest of the Soviet people, in the vanguard of the progressive forces of mankind. … The sucessful solution of the woman question in the U.S.S.R. is eloquent, irrefutable evidence of the advantages of the Soviet social and state system over capitalism; it shows that only the path of Lenin and Stalin, the glorious path to Communism, leads to freedom and happiness for the people, to freedom and happiness for mankind.”

***

I have found a treasure chest of a store. It is small and unassuming yet located in one of Delhi’s ritzier neighbourhoods, Hauz Kaus. It sits nestled among art galleries and designer clothing stores and lies next to beautiful old ruins and serene (albeit faintly lime-coloured) pond. Its treasures include hundreds of old Bollywood posters, old family photographs and musty, antique books. Among the piles of books I found one which was printed in Moscow in 1949 and titled “Women in the Land of Socialism”. This maroon-covered gem of a book is the closest I’ve come to original Soviet propaganda. “The Land of Socialism” didn’t, in fact, do very well by its population (male or female). The book is filled with romantic (and twisted), Stalinist lingo and pictures of various female Stalinist heroes. If one believes the images and personal narratives of the book, the Soviet Union was a land in which doing conveyor belt labour was a) of the upmost importance, b) a sign of gender equality, and c) the most delightful work on the planet.

.

mother mother

“Natalia Filippovna Novichkova: recipient of the Mother Heroine title, has brought up ten children.”

.

“N. A. Prozorova: Hero of Socialist Labour, in a hothouse of teh Krasny Oktyabr Kokhoz.”

Certain artists were considered “heroes of socialist labour” as important as the farmers, mothers and ice-skaters pictured above. Artists were essential: they created the visual propaganda which was part of the Stalinist backbone. Before he fell out of favour, Yuri Pimenov was one such artist.

Give to Heavy Industry

In keeping with the themes of my little maroon book, the “New Soviet Woman” was often the subject of Soviet poster art as gender equality was propagated by the state.

Down With Kitchen Slavery

"mother of the city" statue

Once upon a time I lived in the Soviet Union, and watched it fall apart from our apartment window. Economically, socially and politically speaking, I’m not sure that Russia has stopped crumbling since then.

.

lining up for shashlik, gorky park, moscow

Moscow’s Gorky Park is named after Maxim Gorky, a Russian Socialist Realist author. He was allegedly a personal friend to Lenin for some time, although this relationship eventually turned sour. While in fascist Italy, Stalin personally invited Gorky to return to Moscow.  True to the violentally fickle nature of Stalinist leadership, a few years later the writer was placed under house arrest yet Stalin himself helped carry Gorky’s coffin during his funeral.

Visiting graveyards is a common, slightly morbid part of our family trips. John & I stand in front of Pasternak’s grave:

Pasternak's Grave

Like many Russian writers of his generation Boris Pasternak had to drastically adapt his poetry to suite Soviet politics of the 1920s. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (for Doctor Zhivago) but due to severe censorship, told the Swedish Academy that he would be unable to accept the prize.

Beginnings of Collapse (in a square near our Moscow apartment):

.

“Death to Capitalism” – Anti-Yeltsin protestors in Moscow.

.

.

.

russian white house - bombed

family

Maisonneuve

Click & Read: From Islamabad to the Swat Valley

On Canadian Grounds

.

.

.

.

Meeting Rex, King of Cards

I. Two young travelers have found a way to scam the Indian train system (admittedly, this ability to scam arose from not knowing how to navigate Indian trains). They have paid the 3rd class, non AC fare but are sitting in comfy, 2nd class sleeper berths. Their mold-scented backpacks lie below their outstretched legs and paper cups of sweet, steaming chai are in their hands.

A man in his twenties approaches. The travelers hear him coming as soon as he enters the train car; music is blaring from the headphones wrapped around his neck. His hair and beard are shaggy, his clothes trendy. He hands the two girls a business card for Hotel Gowri. Its in Allappey – the “Venice of India” – which is the town they’re headed to.

“It’s recommended in the Lonely Planet. No pressure. I’ll see you on the platform. You can come with me to the hotel if you want” he says. And he’s gone.

The girls meet him on the platform. They haven’t booked a hotel and are in desperate need of a shower, so they jump into a tuktuk with him and head to Hotel Gowri. By this time they’ve learned that his name is Rex (he will not live up to the suggestions of royalty that are associated with such a name). He is a clothing designer with a shop in Varkala – the beachside town the girls have just left.

“But” he states loudly, “I am bored with Varkala, bored with Allappey. Its time for something else. Maybe Delhi … or Bombay.”

When they get to the hotel Rex disappears. A few hours later, as they sit sharing a beer in a gazebo on the hotel grounds, the girls are surprised to find Rex appear by their side.

these travellers like their tea

“Let’s make a party tonight!” he greets them.

They nod. Why not? After offering to buy them alcohol and taking more money than necessary from what he has clearly deemed to be his new charges, Rex races out of the hotel gates on his motorcycle. He returns to plop drink-mixing necessities in front of the girls and then heads to a nearby gazebo, promising to return (for the “party making”) in an hour. He does indeed return an hour later, but is not in a particularly festive state.

Sweating and distressed, he asks (in a hissed and rather urgent voice) if the two girls would mind lending him 1,000 rupees.

“I’ll pay you back in …” he trails off to glance back at the card game and the group of men that await him, “…ten minutes.”

The girls decline and Rex accepts their answer off gracefully. Again, he races out the front gates on his motorcycle.

Once the card games have finished (and he has made significant losses), Rex joins the girls in their gazebo. He shows them a succession of card tricks and they are suitably impressed. He laughs loudly at all his own jokes.

Soon Rex’s friend arrives. He’s a clean-shaven Gujarati man who smiles easily but has thin, strangely pursed lips and an uptight manner. He calls himself a “corporate” but quickly clarifies that even though he is in this line of work he still drinks his Kingfisher beer straight from the bottle, like every working man.  It is unclear how the two men can possibly have anything in common.

.

Finally Rex announces that it is time for the music that he’s been promising all evening and the group moves to the plastic tables and chairs near the hotel entrance to join a guitarist and a couple of other guys from Allappey. The singer/guitarist is slightly pudgy, with jolly cheeks and a lovely voice. He sings numerous Bob Marley songs, some Clapton and the Hindi favourites. Everyone sings along, although Rex is a little more hesitant than the other men. The guitarist urges Rex to rap for them; Rex, the girls have learnt, is also a DJ. Rex claims that he’d love to rap some 50 Cent but all the American slang in “In Da Club” is hard to memorize. Fair enough, the girls think, 50’s a tricky man.

.

It is one of the girls’ birthday at midnight and when the guys find out they are all appalled that her friend didn’t tell them earlier. Are you her real friend, they demand. They serenade the birthday girl very sweetly and mispronounce her name with gusto. The “corporate” has her make a wish and blow out the flame from his lighter. Another guy runs into the hotel lobby and returns with a gift: a small, sandy, sea shell statue of Ganesh. When Rex whispers in the birthday girl’s ear that he’ll get her something nice later, it’s clear that it’s time for the travellers to head to bed.

.

The girls return to their room, swiftly crawling under their mosquito netting so that the enormous black spider they’d spotted earlier doesn’t have a chance to get into bed with them.

II. Kerala Backwaters

A man bikes down the cobbled path which sits in front of me. On the other side of this path lies a vast expanse of ocean, its waves endlessly crashing onto the shore. Small fishing boats dip into the waves and are invisible for a few seconds before emerging again, with their bows pointing stubbornly upwards.

In the backwaters of Kerala a young girl is bent over. Her thick braids are tied with giant, white bows and fall on either side of her face. She is scrubbing clothes on a rock right outside of her house. Rice fields lie behind her.  Nearby an older woman is bathing. She is wearing a long, pink dress that reaches down to her ankles. Soapsuds line her arms.

schoolgirls

Children in matching uniforms walk home from school along thin walkways, or hop onto public transport (boats are de rigeur here, there is no use for cars). Every child in this province receives an education. We walk by the home of two young children who are eager to talk to us. Their mother asks if we are friends, and if we are traveling alone. When we affirm that we are two young women backpacking by ourselves, she cries out “courage! courage!” We agree. In fact, after Allappey we made a resolution to tell everyone who asks that our boyfriends are waiting for us in the next town.

One man sits at the back of his canoe-like wooden boat. He steers with one hand and holds a multipurpose umbrella (protection from both sun and rain) with another. Keralan fishermen all use this type of long, thin fishing boat but the Karnataka people – who come here from Andhra Pradesh as migrant fishermen (“they come here to take our fish and money and then leave” states the ship’s captain) – paddle by in circular vessels that look more like flying saucers than fishing ships.

Our boat driver tells us that here the Indian government gives each family around 100 litres of water each day. Large wooden boats cross the waterways in the morning, delivering jugs of water that is fit to drink.

Bollywood: The Dream Factory

A few weeks ago Annie, Claire and I went to Mumbai. It took us a 17-hour overnight train ride – and an extremely unpleasant train berth companion – to get there but it was worth it.

The man sharing our four person compartment wore pointed snakeskin shoes and insisted on indiscriminately calling each one of us “babygirl” when he wanted something. In fact, sometimes he didn’t even bother speaking and would silently thrust his depleted food tray into our hands for us to put away. After dinner he decided to fragrance himself (along with the entirety of our squishy shared train compartment). He whipped out the Axe Deospray and, after thoroughly dousing himself, he proceeded to spray the air around, under, and above him.

Oh! I forgot to mention that within the first two minutes of sitting down he managed to introduce himself, proclaim that he was from out of town (South Africa) and demanded my phone number in the event that he might want to get a hold of me in Mumbai. Needless to say, I didn’t give him my digits.

Arabian Sea Waters

On our first day in Mumbai, we walked by the sea for an hour – first on concrete and then tentatively dipping our feet into the water. Eventually the heat got the best of us and we full-out waded through the tide. The sea was reminiscent of tepid bath water and filled with soaked garbage – not the most refreshing substance to ever touch my toes. However, much like the sticky popsicle of indeterminate flavour that I had ingested earlier, it made me feel damn good.

Nautical Windows & Palm Trees

Mumbai

While walking the streets of Mumbai we were repeatedly approached to act as extras in Bollywood films. Sadly, the men propositioning us were less-than-legitimate looking. We passed up our opportunity for fame and went to the movies as audience members instead.

Sometimes a serious analysis of the inner workings of Bollywood narratives yields troubling results, but, really, this film industry is the most successful in the world.

In 1896 the Lumière brothers’ films screened in Bombay’s Watson Hotel. Not to be outdone, in 1913 Dhundirah Govind Phalke – the grandfather of Indian cinema – made the first wholly Indian films, based on the religious epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. During WWII and the fight for Indian independence, Indian filmmaking was largely political and offered fervent social criticism. These days, however, mainstream Bollywood films appear to have little to do with religious epics and politics – unless we’re talking the politics of (PG rated) love-makin’ and hip-shakin’.

“Dhoom again. We’re gonna break the rules and party all the time” – “Dhoom 2″ gives you more stifled violence and lust than any Hollywood film, and its musical numbers dance circles around anything produced by the Western world’s film industry.

“Bunty aur Babli”:

Tender romance – no kissing allowed. That’s the other thing about Indian love scenes … they always leave you wanting more.

I don’t want to belittle the moral imperatives at work in Bollywood films though, as the dancing and singing are often mere accessories to blatant social messages. The tone is often a moralizing one that speaks to the greater good of the community. For example, “Dhoom 2″ and “Bunty aur Babli” are Bonnie and Clyde-esque tales, except that the thieves don’t go out with a bloody, bullet-riddled bang.

Instead, the criminal couples renounce their ‘evil’ ways, are forgiven by stern but kindly police officers and live for love instead of fame and fortune. Not so bad, right?

There is something odd about a film industry with an unequivocal central theme of undying, all-consuming romantic love (a love that begins outside of marriage) in a country where arranged marriages are the reality for many. Is the fight for love, then, something which should only take place on the screen? Perhaps I’m missing something.

India’s film industry also deserves a round of applause for its (baby steps) in the right direction concerning homosexuality. As reported yesterday in the Hindustan Times (HT), “for the first time ever, a Bollywood film scene showing two men locked in a steamy kiss has been passed by the censors.” For a nation that saw violent protests when Deepa Mehta ‘s “Fire” (a film about lesbian love – if you haven’t seen it, go find yourself a copy tonight – McGill Daily article) was released in India, this is a serious feat.  Vinayak Azad – the regional censor board officer – apparently stated that the board “cannot object to the kissing scene because it is not unnatural sex, and besides, board members do not want to be seen as people who oppose homosexuality.” As I write this I realize it is slightly absurd to celebrate something that should be the norm. Nonetheless, this warrants recognition.

Plus, its a pretty delicious looking kiss.

Finding Jesus

While playing cards at a cafe in Mcleod Ganj – the mountain town which is home to the Dalai Lama’s official residence in India – I was approached by a sadhu (an ascetic holy man).

Claire and I had noticed him earlier. In a town whose religious figures are predominately Tibetan Buddhist monks, his Indian features, flowing, orange robes and long black beard set him apart. Plus, he had been filling the cafe with music for an hour as he chanted in time to songs emanating from an MP3 player. He was just loud enough, of course, for everyone to hear him.

As I shuffled, dealt and played the cards, I repeatedly caught him staring at me. Disquieted by the gaze of what was certainly a holy man, I averted my eyes. Finally, he stood up and, arranging his robes, walked over to our table.

He opened with a compliment.

“I like the way you handle those cards,” he said in perfect English.

I thanked him and continued shuffling but he was persistent.

“You are smart, I can tell.”

There was something strange about the way he looked at me. It was as though he fancied himself prophetic. Whether or not I really was smart didn’t matter to him – he was calling upon the intelligence that he assumed was somewhere within me (within all human beings, really).  If I was not already ‘smart’, his words would ensure that I recognized this quality.

The conversation ended with him handing Claire and I a small, stapled booklet titled “The Pearl of Great Price: The Story of a Young Sadhu.”  I looked up at his smiling eyes and back to the colour photo on the cover a couple of times before affirming that yes, he had indeed just given me a booklet with his face emblazoned on the front.  Being the home-in-exile of the Dalai Lama, Mcleod Ganj attracts not only those interested in Tibetan Buddhism but also visitors of other spiritual – this term loosely includes yoga and reiki aficionados – persuasions. Mr. Sadhu Nityananda was one such visitor. While his autobiography will never win prizes for prose and diction, I did find some of its central tenants fascinating.

A Young Sadhu

Firstly, Sadhu Nityananda is the son of a great yogi of the Hindu Brahmin caste. Nityananda’s traditionally and culturally-ordained path should have been to become a yogi in his own right and choose a Hindu guru.  Nityananda rejected the route that was expected of him and instead embraced a guru from an entirely different tradition – Jesus Christ. What?!  I was shocked – naively – to think that such a traditionally dressed Indian sadhu was actually a Christian. As the story goes, Nityananda’s Brahmin family rejected his newfound beliefs entirely but he remained faithful to Jesus (and himself – I gather from the fact that he hands out his autobiography to strangers in cafes).

This might sound as though I am averse to someone politely forcing their religious views on me – I’m not. I was, however, slightly offended by his booklet’s condemnation of religious relativism and of atheism.  “The greatest butchers in human history,” the introduction posits, “were all atheists. Listed in order of magnitude are: Mao Zedong, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, along with the vast number of people who happily followed them.”
The text goes on to argue that we (the inhabitants of the postmodern era) are too easily swayed by the type of thinking that argues in favour of embracing all religious thought as equally valid, equally true. It is obvious that those “greatest butchers” were not validating their actions in the name of any god-on-high and I know that a family disowning their child because of their religious beliefs is not comparable. However, his argument validates the idea of committing to one’s faith to the extent that others who follow different religious/philosophical trajectories are necessarily and wholeheartedly rejected. This seems to condone the treatment he received at the hands of his parents and peers for choosing Christianity over Hinduism.

Another Way to Interpret Things - Artist: Ashley Lande

Here’s a fun fact to prove how naive I was to assume that a traditionally dressed sadhu couldn’t possibly be a follower of Jesus.  In some parts of India, Christianity was introduced far prior to Hinduism, Jainism or Buddhism.  Legend dictates that Christianity was brought to the southern state of Kerala by the Apostle Saint Thomas as early as AD 52. Judaism also arrived in Kerala before the emigration of Brahmins (and thus Hinduism). Islam, too, was introduced to the region by the 8th century.

Keralans are often  characterized as being more laid-back and more accepting than their fellow Indians in other states. Surely this has something to do with the fact that their homeland is a historical melting pot of religious faith. Or maybe its just the fresh sea air? Today, however, Kerala’s government appears to be less concered with matters of religion than other parts of the country. In fact, it is one of the most Communist states in India. Unlike the other hard-hitting Communist state – Bengal – Kerala boasts a 100 per cent literacy rate and, arguably, the greatest gender equality in all of India.

Flashback (I don’t like heavy metal either)

Flasback to last summer:

Last summer Josh (Frank) and I were going to make a summer-in-Beijing-inspired graphic novel. Then we got lazy and let our big plans fester in forgotten notebooks. The other day Josh found a text he had written about Puppy. We met Puppy while sitting on the stoop of D-22 – a bar and music venue in Beijing’s Haidian district – one sweaty, summer night.

This text, written by Josh, is a tribute to the little graphic novel that never made it in the world.

Puppy is one of those bizarre creatures of the night that somehow ruminate in your mind for months after having met them. Sadly, I have entirely forgotten what Puppy looked like. The accompanying sketch belongs to a different Beijing night and features Simon Frank (who I am not, in any way, comparing to Puppy) at Mini Midi music festival.

Puppy the Punk

-Joshua Frank

What’s your name? Shiwen? Oh, simple!

Mine is Puppy! Puppy, you know? Arfffh! Arfffh!

Puppy the Punk offers us the Chinese equivalent of fig newtons. He rips off his D-22 entrance bracelet. “Makes me feel like they’re cops.”

I’m a punk. I’m a punk ‘cause I hate our governmennn…. I’m also Christian.

You’re from Canada? I love that song “Everything I do, I do it for you -” Also Rush!

Yes I’m still punk!

He yells out to a pudgy guy with a well-meaning face and a shaved head: – Hey brother, Slayer-ge! You look like the Slayer guitarist!

Then, to Caitlin:

Lady, do you like heavy metal?

This is best Chinese metal CD!

It’s wrapped in plastic, and called “Resurrection 3”

It’s my gift to you. The singers are all very terrible!

“Here,” he concludes, “I don’t like heavy metal.”

.

While in Beijing, the Yip-Bannicq’s graciously let me infiltrate their space for two months. Their apartment on the 38th floor was home to 3 cats, 2 birds, 1 turtle, 3 daughters, 2 parents, 100 beautiful carpets, rotating house guests, and me.  I like the Yip-Bannicq aesthetic. This painting is a loving interpretation of their living room.

Beijing - 38 Stories Up

Flashback to Pakistan’s Swat Valley, early 1990’s:

There have been some dramatic, devestating changes in recent years. Today, as the Pakistani military battles Taliban forces, millions of refugees are fleeing the region. Few reporters are allowed into the area and the number of civilian deaths and casualties remains unknown.

Basit & I. Age 7 or 8. Swat Valley, Pakistan.

Family Time - Chai & Charpoi. Swat Valley, Pakistan.

Visual Love

Annie & John. Annie and I danced in the rain in Mcleod Ganj – the same mountain town in which John and I met a stoned Nepalese man at a cafe. He called himself Peter Pan, then informed us that there are far too many Captain Hooks in the world. We agreed.

Train Reading

Mumbai - Annie Meets the Centre of the World

Pretty John

Artistic License

A tiny tribute to Claire. She’s beautiful & rad & toughed it out (and enjoyed it) in India even though the country tried to eat her stomach and bowels alive. Plus, I don’t know anyone else who gets as excited about BOTH Bollywood dancing and tea.

So, here’s to a pretty woman.

To Elephanta Island

Train Sketch